THE ASCAP NEWSLETTER
Across-Species Comparisons And Psychopathology Newsletter
Volume 7, No. 1, 15 Jan 1994 (Cumulative #74)
"Numerous selection pressures, often at odds with one another and acting on mechanisms originally serving old purposes, built by
accretion a three-layer Rube Goldberg of a CNS in which the parts, too,are often at odds with one another, and serve old
purposes."
Jerome Barkow1
Newsletter aims
1. A free exchange of letters,
notes, articles, essays or ideas
in brief format.
2. Elaboration of others' ideas.
3. Keeping up with productions, events, and other news.
4. Proposals for new initiatives, joint research endeavors,
etc.
The ASCAP Newsletter
is a function of the
International Association
for the Study of
Comparative Psychopathology2
IASCAP Executive Council:
President:
Paul Gilbert
President-Elect:
John K Pearce
First Vice President: Leon Sloman
Second Vice President: Daniel R Wilson
Past-President:
Michael R A Chance
Past-President:
John S Price
Secretary & Newsletter Editor;
Russell Gardner, Jr,
4.450 Graves Building (D28)
UTMB, Galveston,
Texas 77555-0428, USA
Phone: (409) 772-7029
FAX: (409)772-6771
Managing Editor: Erica Ainsbury
IASCAP Mission Statement:
The society represents a group of
people who view forms of psychopathology in the context of evolutionary biology
and who wish to mobilize the resources
of various disciplines and individuals
potentially involved so as to enhance the
further investigation and study of the conceptual and research questions involved. This scientific society is concerned with the basic plans of behavior
that have evolved over millions of years
and that have resulted in psychopathologically related states. We are interested in the integration of various
methods of study ranging from cellular
processes to individuals to individuals in
groups.
IASCAP to meet!
Contents
1. Letters from David Rosen,
Hiram Caton, & Mike Waller,
P2
2. Quotes selected from an article entitled Lust for Leadership
p3
3. Letter and Abstract
by E Shorter
p2
4. Leadership Abstract
by R Robins & R Dorn
p4
5. Letter from JS Price
p4
6. Can John Price explain
American football? by RG
p5
7. Rustler rhapsody
by JS Price .
p7
8. Saint who didn't submit
by R Gardner
p8
9. Sociobiology of the we-they
by R Gardner
p10
10. Tutorials are a new feature:
excerpts from articles published
elsewhere -- not only in abstract
form ~ but including instructive
components of the article that
explain or introduce a field
relevant to our study but outside
the usual reader's expertise.
Topics are on (1) a basic plan
of developmental neuronal patterning
p13
(2) physiological MRI
p14
(3) what is the importance of a
neurotransmitter named galanin
for the cognition of great apes
and humans, given its different
location in them vs monkeys?
p15
We thank Debbie Snyderman,
our Thomas Jefferson University
member from Philadelphia, who
has worked to make the following arrangements.
Mark your calendars for Saturday, May 21, 1994. We meet
from 9 am to 3 pm in room 139,
Jefferson Alumni Hall, 1020
Locust Street, Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania for the business
meeting of IASCAP. We expect
to arrange our scientific sessions
in an ad hoc manner for Sunday
and other days during the
American Psychiatric Association which meets May 23
through 26,1994.
The agenda includes renaming of the society with a possible
revision of the mission statement. The name of the newsletter will also be at issue. Also, we
need more formal rules and
regulations for doing business.
An additional business item is
how we will accomplish scientific
session(s) for this and other gettogethers. Format, (in)formality,
future arrangements require decisions and guidelines.
Dr Snyderman tells us that the
Jefferson Alumni Hall contains
an art museum and that she will
arrange for an art historian to
give the group a free tour!
Imperial Animal.3 Biogrammar makes an important
point, but indeed is not the same as the more inclusive set of basic plan. Rather, T&F describe the
concept as "Each species has a repertoire of
signals-postures, gestures, movements-to communicate what the animals feel and what they plan
to do."4
Letters
Nov 10, 1993
There is a correction in the October ASCAP
Newsletter reference #7 in President Paul
Gilbert's letter. Anthony Steven's book, The Two
Million-Year-Old Self was published this year
(1993) by the Texas A&M University Press, College
Station, TX, (not U Texas, Austin). To the English,
it's probably all the same, but to Texans (as you
know), there is an immense difference, like night
and day.
Such comes not only from learning but from
what is inherited as repertoire components: "it
turns out that while the variations are endless, the
themes are restricted in number, and are, in all cultures, the fixed points on which the system turns.
The story can be told in many different ways, but
the plot and the characters remain the same."5
This is the pivot around which their book hinges,
eg, on a page picked randomly, "What children
find easy to learn and enjoy learning reflects the
biogrammar with which we are concerned."6
Biogrammar refers, in other words, to a set of
basic plans that have been culturally misinterpreted along a storyline that ignored human
body-heritage, and strove somehow to see people
as independent of it.
David Rosen, Texas A&M,
College Station, TX, USA
Indeed / should have caught that one! Ingroup/out-group in Texas is symbolized by the difference between the Aggies (Texas A&M in College Station) and the Orange (University of Texas
in Austin). We're sorry about the mis-reference.
Letters (continued)
13 Dec 1993
...You might be interested to know of a historical
contribution on [the] subject [of mania at the intersection of biology and culture].
Letters (continued)
3 Dec 1993
Edward Shorter, History of Medicine Program,
U Toronto, CANADA
Thanks for printing the announcement of the bibliography.
I have subscribed to IASCAP. Incidently, I do
think the 'basic plan' concept has much to recommend it, especially, in comparison with "biogram."
Shorter E: Mania, hysteria and gender in lower
Austria, 1891-1905. History of Psychiatry 1990;i:331.
I enjoyed the newsletter you sent. I may well submit something on crowd behavior.
Selected quote from the introduction: Individuals
respond to models offered by the culture of what
represents 'legitimate' disease. Their minds do
not chose symptoms randomly but in response to
cultural notions of what is appropriate for presenting distress. The culture presents a template, or
model, for making one's inner distress evident to
others or bringing it to the doctor.
Hiram Caton, Griffeth U, Brisbane, AUSTRALIA
I hope you do contribute something on crowd
behavior. Note material below on leadership and
followership.
Thus the social historian of psychiatry must
pursue three separate narratives: one, that of underlying biology; second, the story of the stresses
Thanks for calling attention to biogrammar initially labeled by Tiger and Fox in their famous The
2
best way" with any people-based enterprise.
However, it is unfair to carp; these people have
the unalienable right to make a dishonest living.
The amusing bit is that, with the exception of Sir
Graham Day who has clearly attended the right
management conferences, most of the contributions from the established leaders are largely cast
in the "old" leadership mould and at some
variance with the thesis contained in the article. I
am unclear whether this was a subtle means of telling us that the leaders selected are out of touch.
More likely, the editors were so immured to the
latest management theory "discovery" that they did
not notice the contrast.
and life experiences of individual patients; third,
the story of changes in the models which the culture holds out for the communication of inner distress.
In the interior of the triangle are the actual
psychiatric symptoms, and their history. But this
history may be shaped by changing any of the
three sides: by demographic changes which alter
the composition of the population that is biologically at risk; by social changes which increases or
decrease the pressures upon, let us say, young
women...; and by cultural changes which modify
the kind of behaviour that is expected of
individuals
.... I was most impressed (awed would perhaps
be the better word) by your review of the literature
in explaining your attachment to the current ASCAP terminology. I have had a go at renaming
ASCAP while retaining the acronym. My best effort
is Association for the Study of Cellulo-genetic Attitudinal Pathologies. Unfortunately, this might lead
to the conclusion (assuredly false) that all ASCAPers have in common is an attitude problem.
Now if you asked me what I think ASCAP ought to
stand for, that would be much easier: Association
for the Study of Contingent Anti-personnel
Processes, of course....
Footnote: This concept of 'triangle' differs somewhat from the 'biopsychosocial' model that
George L Engel has presented for understanding
disease. In the triangle, 'psyche' and 'social' commingle at two separate points: at 'personal life history' and 'at cultural representations'. The triangle
model has the advantage of permitting us clearly
to disentangle the stressful factors in an
individual's life history from the cultural forms available to him or her for expressing psychic distress.
Mike Waller, Glenclyne, UNITED KINGDOM
Letters (continued)
8 Dec 1993
Herewith my bank draft for $20. Outstanding
value for money! You will see that I have enclosed
a UK magazine the lead story in which is entitled
"The Lust for Leadership." I found the article itself
rather a disappointment, but either it or the associated contributions from current leaders (a
somewhat mixed bag!) may provide tidbits you
may wish to cull. [Excerpts follow this letter].
Caulkin S: The lust for leadership. Management
Today November, 1993, pp 38-41
Selected quotes: Leadership has long been the
subject of speculation by historians and the
military. But as business has become imbricated
in Western cultures...., it has eagerly co-opted the
idea of leadership as its own.... Leadership has
become the Holy Grail of management, endlessly
sought, endlessly elusive. Figures are lacking, but
of books and courses on the making of leaders
there is no end....
There is one aspect which I find rather amusing.
The article itself largely comprises what I call
"consulto-babble" of which Tom Peters is not but
the current leading exponent. It is full of stuff about
the new kind of leader now needed to deal with a
"swirling, contradictory environment." It is not so
much wrong, as simply a frothed-up rehash of
something academia has known about for 30
years, and the rest of the world since the advent of
socially directed cognition.
The expression
"horses for courses" catches the idea that leadership skills are situation-dependent. Similarly, the
afro-American saying "different strokes for different folks" makes clear that there can be no "one
And the sum total of all this activity? 'We know
very little about it,' says Andrew Campbell, codirector of the Ashridge Strategic Management
Centre, cheerfully, 'All the research adds up to a
profound recognition that leaders have followers,
and where there are followers there are leaders.
But since we can't tell which creates the other, it's
very difficult to know which levers to pull.'
If, indeed, the levers can be pulled at all. On the
3
crucial question of whether leaders are born or
made, Peter Drucker, for one, has always been
categorical that leadership, being innate, can't be
taught or promoted....
leaders never forget the people who work for
them. The difference between passive obedience
and active loyalty can make the difference between success and failure.
In fact, all that can be said with certainty about
leadership is that it has absolutely zero inherent
connection with good and that it works - sometimes with catastrophic results.... In short, a great
many leaders are people to whom normal human
beings would hesitate to give house room....
Sir Peter Inge (Chief of the General Staff):
[Definition... 'A person or thing that leads or a person followed by others.' ... [L]ist of essential
qualities necessary in a leader... Personality and
character... Courage... Willpower... Knowledge...
Initiative... I would add two qualities. They are unselfishness and showing that you enjoy being a
leader.
[T]he leader as a business superman - a charismatic, driven, Olympian authority - remains an
obsession.... [but] other models of leadership exist. Japanese companies by and large do not feel
the need for Nietschean leaders, and ... their
model for followership is different, too....
Robins RS, Dorn RM: Stress and political leadership. Stress 1993; 12(1) :3-17.
Michael Black... [notes] 'Leadership may be a
charism, a gift, but it is a gift that requires recognition of the severe limitations of one's power as a
leader.'...In [the] memorable phrase, 'Leadership
is in the eye of the follower.' ...Sums up Robert Kelley of Carnegie Mellon University, 'Followership
dominates our lives and our organizations, but not
our thinking, because our preoccupation with
leadership keeps us from considering the nature
and importance of the follower.'...
Abstract: The literature on stress and political
leadership typically views such potential stressors
as time-pressure, severe consequences for bad
decisions, inadequate information, and conflicting
demands as negative influences on political performance. We know, however, that many politicians
thrive on or even require such circumstances.
Drawing on medical,
historical,
psychiatric,
psychological, and political science literature, this
essay proposes that there are at least three major
types of leaders in regard to potential stressors:
sturdy warriors (who cope with or who even enjoy
and are helped by events commonly reacted to
others as stressors), battle-hungry warriors (who
are psychologically drawn to potential stressors
and "cannot function," well or badly, without them),
and frail warriors (who are unable to cope with
stressors). Subcategories, including psychological and political dynamics, are provided.
Effective followers...require a light touch.
Leaders in an organization of effective followers
are facilitators of change, conductors of an orchestra, in Drucker's description, rather than
square-jawed decision-makers of the past. They
treat followers as co-equals except in strict line
terms. In turn, that fits followers for one of their
most important (although usually unstated) functions: to keep leadership on the straight and
narrow....
The crisis of leadership is only partly the quality
of the leaders themselves, much more the crude,
market-driven model by which we are reduced to
judging them. And don't look to leaders on their
own to fix this problem. 'Expectations create
leaders, not vice versa,' says Michael Black.
Leaders are them, but they are also us.
Letters (continued)
9 Dec 1993
Congratulations on another excellent issue of
ASCAP. I vote strongly for retaining the name even
though what it stands for no longer applies very
much. For me ASCAP stands for "as foolscap"...
the sort of thing that one writes down informally
and passes around for discussion.
Two leaders provide definition in response to
Management Today's invitation to define leadership. Management Today's Nov, 1993, p42.
John Major (Prime Minister): [T]wo qualifications
above all which I consider to be vital to good
leadership. First... courage of their principles and
clear long-term objectives...
Second,
good
I also like your discussion of basic plans. As far
as the social hierarchy goes, we must have a
basic plan for relating to the person above us, and
4
Like Frans de Waal's chimpanzees, but much
more so, we humans have alliances.7 Ritual
agonistic behaviour in the form of put-downs, verbal jousting, fights and the like occur somewhat differently for humans than for chimpanzees, with the
fact that we have (using Merlin Donald's phrasing)
gone two steps beyond the episodic culture of the
great apes to a mimicry and myth as well.8
a separate basic plan for relating to the person
below us. Then I think we have a second order
basic plan, at a higher logical level, which is concerned with switching from one basic plan to
another, when we are over taken by the person
below, or ourselves overtake the person above.
Here we get into the problem about the multiple
number of relationships that people have and
therefore the basic plan that you have for one person is not the same as the basic plan you have for
other people. Therefore it is difficult to see why the
basic plan should affect one's general behaviour
rather than one's behaviour in a specific relationship.
Smaller brained large primates keep track of
former encounters, but the encounters are
episodes that add or detract from current standing,
whereas proto-humans apparently used memory
and action to commemorate important events and
plan new ones more metaphoric and ceremonial
than less planful activities of the chimpanzee or
australopithecine. Evolution of verbal language to
explain and anticipate such things further expanded the repertoire of methods to deploy lessbasic plans; this allowed considerable tinkering
with the more basic ways of doing things.
I think the answer to this is that there is always a
single "key person" or "key rival" who is the person
usually either immediately above or immediately
below in the hierarchy, with whom one's relationship is being threatened or likely to change. If you
are feeling confident, then your key rival is the person who ranks above you, and your behaviour is
governed by the basic plan for challenging the person above. If you are being threatened by the person below, then your behaviour is governed by the
basic plan of relating to the person below. When
your relationship with the 'key rival" changes then
your behaviour is governed by the second order
basic plan, and you become depressed if you are
switching to an up-hierarchy basic plan and you
become elated if you are switching to a downhierarchy basic plan.
Consider from the following how instant communication has added to the potential of myth.
This is relevant beyond emphasizing the horizontal
dimension of Birtchnell (propensities towards closeness to versus distance from other people) in
these considerations: I tried to apply the story-line
of John's in various scenarios with which I am very
familiar and I can't put the figures involved in an
agonistic framework separated from their larger
social structure.
Thus, I provide an example from American football which I follow as a fair-weather fan (I support
the team if they win; otherwise, I appreciatively
lose interest, appeciatively because I then have
more time to do other things than listen or watch
the games and read about the scores. I am now
doubly cursed and have no time for myself: at this
time, Houston has two extraordinarily successful
sports teams ~ in football and basketball).
This model gives us two intensities of mood
change in either direction, one for the first order
basic plan and one for the second order basic
plan. Possibly this underlies the difference between neurotic and psychotic depression and between confident personality and hypomania.
John Price, U Wellington, NEW ZEALAND
The football team (Houston Oilers) has been
notable for several years under the low key leadership of Jack Pardee, who delegates considerably,
never seems upset, stays very much quietly in command. He has a talent for explanations that minimize conflict and maximize cooperation and good
will. His offensive coordinator for years has been
Kevin Gilbride who executes (and is the chief engineer of a controversial offense). Pardee brought
it from his former job, but other teams currently
don't use it. Gilbride is respected for having survived a kidney removal for cancer with dignity and
"Let's get on with business" attitude. He is a perennial candidate for head coach positions.
Response and challenge: can John Price explain American football?
by R Gardner
John Price, in this effort to discuss switches
from one basic plan to another, gives us an extraordinarily spare model of a three person level of
hierarchy, given the complexity of the social networks to which we belong. With the spareness is a
sense of unrealism.
5
avuncular and calm, saying that the team would
handle it privately. He is now credited with genius
for having held the team together.
But losses in the clutch were disillusioning. Last
year in the playoffs, the Oilers were many points
ahead until the final minutes of the game when the
defense collapsed in a particularly dramatic
fashion in a humiliating loss. The defense coordinator was promptly fired and a new highly controversial figure was hired instead. This was Buddy
Ryan who had been the defensive coach of a Superbowl team before. He then becamae a head
coach, but was fired after indifferent success as
the overall boss.
Some details have become available about the
conflict: after the fumble in a nontraditional, nonconservative play, the other team threatened to
score and Buddy said to Gilbride, "Why don't you
play professional football?" Gilbride responded
with an obscenity, probably, "Fuck you." At this
point, Buddy swung at him (in itself laughable, as
he always appears pugnacious but is small, gray,
and rotund compared to the tall, athletic Gilbride
who always appears with unruffled brown hair).
Now the defensive unit is coached with high intensity and an intricate schema; the outcome is
that they are unusually aggressive, swarming, and
intelligently confusing to the opponents. Buddy
Ryan is not only antagonistic to other teams but to
the offensive unit of the same team, disdaining the
special offense unique to the team, catathetically
calling it the "chuck and duck" rather than the more
usual and respectful "run and shoot." He is a
master at the condescending put-down: mocking,
devastating humor.
How do we understand these events from John
Price's schema? Like Robert Southwell whose
story is summarized later, Buddy does not accept
that he is anything but alpha status. Notable,
however, is he never directly challenges Pardee,
only his counterpart on the offensive unit. His
manifest rebellion is probably a factor in the feistiness of his defensive unit which loves him. Success is powerful as is also his winning formula, apparently.
The season started inauspiciously: 1 win with 4
losses. Team morale was very low; but then the
defense seemed to learn Buddy's system (he is
more easily "Buddy" whereas Gilbride remains
"Gilbride" - I refer here to information seeping in
from car radio daily talk shows). To me, offense
was good too, but not as impressive as the
defense. The result has been many team records:
11 straight wins, division championship, and good
prospects for post-season playoffs which happen
in January. Buddy claimed the credit and suggested that he should symbolically carry Gilbride
up the stairs as that was how the defense had
carried the offense this year (myth-making through
mimetic imagery).
Buddy has made no secret of his avid desire to
be head coach again. But if newspaper experts are
correct, he has little chance with the franchises so
far recruiting: he is too controversial and potentially embarrassing. But of course, some owners
might desire that the coach be colorful as this
enhances media presence and consumer interest.
The sports pundits freely predict that if the Oilers
win the Superbowl, Buddy will get another go at
the head coach business.
This diversion into American football emphasizes that even in the human game/play setting, the complexities are so much greater than the
spare scenario outlined by John. What are the
many basic plans simultaneously deployed by
Buddy, Jack Pardee and Gilbride in the multiple
levels of their interactions with one another and
with their a u d i e n c e s and their playerconstituencies, not to mention the rich oilman
owner (from its onset three decades ago) who is a
one-person constituency with the ability to not only
hire but fire? He deplored the fight, but grinned
saying that he has never had a better defense, and
maybe this is the way the organization ought to
work.
In the last game of the regular season, the otherwise high quality team scored nothing, a rarity: testimony to Buddy's system. In the middle of the
game, however, the offense made some controversial decisions resulting in a fumble, decisions with
which Buddy disagreed. National television, knowing the drama of this coordinator controversy,
zeroed in on the two of them and amazingly
caught Buddy going after Gilbride with his right
fist. This has captured local and national media
with far more attention than that received by the
game and the triumphant end of the season. The
radio talk shows were filled with nothing else.
So there is a challenge here! How can the basic
plans and the less basic plans be specified? In this
case, the switch is not the issue, but the simple
description.
Buddy has apologized only to his defensive unit,
saying that he was sorry to have diverted attention
from their triumph. Jack Pardee has remained
6
The victor of the contest, for his part, shows
ritual restraint, "If he's backed down, I couldn't go
after him, it wouldn't be nice."
Rustlers' Rhapsody
by J S Price
The depressive phase is brought to an end by
the elicitation of strong anger, when the bad guys
shoot his side-kick, and he then rallies the sheep
farmers for a final showdown.
I would like to follow up my comments on RG
case IA (ASCAP Dec 1993) with a case of depression from fiction, which illustrates, I think, the usefulness of the 3-level model of escalating and deescalating alternative agonistic strategies.
What lessons can we draw from this tale? One is
that we need all three modular levels to describe
the interaction, so that the three level diagram of
escalation/de-escalation in July's ASCAP (1993) is
better than the two level diagram in the June issue,
thus vindicating Leon's insistence on the importance of anger (both in prolonging depression and,
as in this case, relieving it). Also it emphasizes that
the thymic de-escalation of depression can be
over-ridden by escalation in either of the other two
modules. As therapists, we are more likely to encourage escalation in the deliberative module, if
we see that with help the patient can win his battle,
and that yielding is not needed in any of the
modules.
The depressive episode afflicts the hero of the
spoof Western Rustlers Rhapsody. Written and
directed by Hugh Wilson, the film is a fantasy on
the pre-1947 B movie Westerns starring Rex
O'Herlihan (the "singing cowboy") and his horse,
Wildfire. The film illustrates the occurrence of a
depressive episode following defeat in a ritual
agonistic encounter; also the formation of an asymmetrical affiliative bond and an exercise in the
theory of logical types that would have delighted
Bateson and the Palo Alto group.
The hero comes to town and defends the good
guys (sheep herders) against the bad guys
(cattlemen), adopting, along the way, the town
drunk as his "side-kick". The cattlemen hire their
own "gun" and eventually there is an eyeball-toeyeball confrontation between the gunmen. But the
"frame" of the confrontation is expanded to a
higher logical level. They metacommunicate about
the rules of the encounter. They agree that, since
they are taking part in a Western, and since in
Westerns the good guy always wins against the
bad guy, the winner will be the one who convinces
the other that he is the good guy. Therefore, instead of exchanging shots, they exchange bits of
proof that they are the good guy and the opponent
is the bad guy.
Alternative strategies
ESCALATING
DE-ESCALATING
Brain
level
CORTEX (A) Fight to win
(deliberative)
(B) Submit
LIMBIC
(C) Get angry
(emotional)
(D) Feel
chastened
STRIATUM (E) Mood
(thymic)
elevation
(F) Depression
I am not sure to what extent the elicitation of
anger has been discussed in the treatment of
depression. Clearly it could be a two edged
weapon, as the provoking stimulus might well
make the depression worse; in modular terms, the
stimulus c o u l d have i n t e n s i f i e d t h y m i c
(paleomental) de-escalation because of the loss of
RHP caused by the death of an ally and the insult
inflicted by his shooting. It might have induced deescalation in the affective module too, leaving only
grief and humiliation. But in fact it produced such
intense escalation in the affective module (in the
form of anger) that this module over-rode the deescalation of the thymic module and led to overall
escalatory (assertive) behaviour, thus eliminating
the one-down position vis-a-vis the cattlemen's
hired gun which had led to the depressive episode
in the first place. It was a true escalation of the fight
- he did not recontest the one-to-one encounter
Since the cattlemen, knowing the metarule, have
hired their gunman for his virtue rather than for his
shooting, the hero is beaten, and his immediate
defeat behaviour recalls Leon Sloman's description
of losing at tennis. As his opponent counts down
. to the draw, he looks uncomfortable and says, "I
can't fight you today ... I'll fight you tomorrow ...
maybe Thursday ... yeah, Thursday'd be good",
whereupon he slinks off to his campsite outside
town where he throws away his guns and expresses ideas of low profile and unworthiness: "I'll
get some new clothes, understated stuff, lots of
browns (he is presented as a very flashy dresser),
and I'll have to sell Wildfire, he's too good a horse
for me now."
7
with pistols, but rather escalated to a group-togroup encounter with rifles; he also shot his opponent in the head and killed him, in contrast to his
usual policy of shooting people in the hand.
many vertebrate species, not as basic as the
eukaryotic cell nor the first glued together multicellular animals, even as old as fish.
But if this is true, it is also true as John Birtchnell
and Seymour Itzkoff have stressed, humans are different. Their brains are three-times bigger than the
brains of Australopithecines and of non-human
primates. The increased size, with its concomitant
hazards for child-bearing, accomplishes things
helpful for survival that the smaller brains did not
have. One facet is gregariousness: as animals go,
we connect to and depend on each other very
much. Also, we people plan a lot and do so with
the aid of stories: I know of no other animals with
the articulated story-lines of humans. Third, to relate, we communicate with subtlety ~ not always
as friends, but as enemies too.
Can ASCAP readers suggest any other fictional
(or biographical) examples of depression following
a ritual agonistic encounter?
On not signaling submission
by R Gardner
Following on John Price's contribution, this
bears on the following contrary example from fictionalized history: not depression but nondepression followed torture.
Southwell
A Christmas present
Now back to the stories of the saints: Robert
Southwell was a Jesuit priest in Elizabethan
England who in public defiance of the Queen insisted that the pope not the monarch was the head
of the Church. "His imagination was caught by the
life and death of Edmund Campion, the first
English Jesuit martyr, who was, like Southwell, a
poet and essayist."
I've been reading the stories of saints in a
Christmas present from a colleague: McClung J:
Mischief and Mercy: Tales of the Saints. Berkeley,
CA: Tricycle Press, 1993.9 Jean McClung is a
Texas physician who has thought much about torture, abuse and the sequelae they produce in the
personal development of people. She has also examined history and the context of these stories,
manifestly retellings and fictional. These include
Mary Magdalene, Amadour and Veronica, Valentine, Saint Nicholas of Myra, Paul the Simple,
Dymphna, Wencelas, Francis of Assisi and Clare,
Robert Southwell, Junipero Serra, Jean Vianney,
and (?!) Judas. I recommend the book: forceful, attractive, self-disclosing, interesting - good stories.
Not for the faint of heart: the saints and Dr
McClung's knowledge of them makes for an unblinking view of history.
Southwell, product of a prominent Norfolk
family, also became a martyr, noting at his trial that
he had lived the same number of years as our
Lord. We have learned from Frank Sulloway that
he is likely to have been a younger son: although
not evident from the book, from personal conversation with Jean, we learn that we are correct.
Southwell's father and older brother were nominal
Catholics willing to attend Anglican services on
ceremonial occasions.
Involuntary submission
Southwell clearly participated in story-lines that
dominated his life. He was one of the three
hundred Jesuits who smuggled themselves to the
island from France in disguise to provide sacraments to Catholics there, and died as a result.
But my larger reason for referring to Jean's book
in these pages is that I discovered in it an illustration of the difficulties inherent in studying submission. We have argued in these pages repeatedly
that submission, yielding, and defeat are part of an
ancient and deeply encoded behavioral pattern.
Indeed, reviewers of refereed journals are beginning to accept for publication articulations of that
point of view. By ancient, we mean evolutionary history hundreds of millions of years old, not just the
hundreds or thousands of years of human recorded history. Behavioral pattern means that the
behavior results from a fairly basic basic plan:
genomically encoded, realized in the neurons of
Topcliffe was the chief of the Queen's anti-Jesuit
police. Topcliffe found Southwell particularly a
problem as Dr McClung portrays in a mythical letter she has the martyr write:
To know Topcliffe in a nutshell is to know his invention which he calls "Topcliffe's rack," which in
fact has affinities with the torture of the pulleys as
well as with the Roman rack.... It is typical of
Topcliffe that he loves this device so because it
8
enough - and unmistakably - that Topcliffe was
driven to put him on the rack still further.
leaves no marks and thus can cause no scandal.
He carries a special hatred for me because he
believes me to possess a certain grace of speech
and bearing which most certainly must have been
plundered in its entirety from him at the very beginning of the aforementioned conspiracy against
him. He is the only human being I have known that
I would call ugly. This has nothing to do with the
way God made him, but with the anger and hatred
that inhabit his every movement, his every sentence, the very bones of his face. I told him once
from the rack when he was cursing the fair look in
my face that God could make him beautiful if he
would just give God time to work on him. That
was the time he left me there to die and I would
have done except that [his assistant] cut me down.
How different the scenario if Southwell had like
his father and brother given token submissive signals. Dr McClung notes that Elizabeth's 300
sacrifices in 45 years paled against the same number of deaths in only five years brought about by
Mary Queen of Scots. She didn't require much:
only some attendance of special services and no
open defiance.
Think how differently things would have worked
if Southwell had been clinically depressed: no
defiance, no overt anger expressed to superiors,
deadened facial expressions with subtlety gone,
little concern for social niceties, feeling pained
without any torture, without interests, low selfesteem, and manifest dysphoria. Rather his joyfulness, psychological disconnection (dissociation)
from the torture itself, conscious and continued
anger, subtle rebellion - all these conspired to
help him live out his personal story-line of becoming a martyr. If he had properly implemented involuntary submission, he could have gone about
other business and probably would have died a
less notable death, including the possibility of
suicide.
For myself, what prison has done to me is the
precise opposite of destruction. It has mended me
into a wholeness I never believed could be mine.
Of course my body is broken, but somehow that
does not signify much. I fight the pain...there is
much anger to bear and contain. I have thought
that perhaps Topcliffe racked me so many timesten times he hanged me up on his rack-because
he noticed that throughout the first four times, I
was so angry thinking about Anne [Bellamy-she
was tortured and raped] and the way she had
been used and deliberately broken, that in some
sense I was not properly attending to the pain.
Did Southwell look depressed?
Please pray God also to forgive me for my unfailing politeness to Topcliffe which has been an enormous comfort to my soul, but which enrages
Topcliffe and thus provides, I fear, further occasion for him to sin.
The other issue, however, is the difficulty in defining the submissive state: how can one deny that
Southwell was submitting? He was forced to be so,
he was imprisoned, his non-submissive behaviors
were subtle. If we were rats and watched by some
over-seeing researchers who didn't know our language and subtle communications, I suspect they
would have difficulty in deciphering the meaning.
Southwell wasn't depressed
Human uniqueness thus allowed Southwell to be
defiant even though Topcliffe was the nominal
dominant. With authority felt from the Lord, he
could tell Topcliffe in a paternally dominant manner
that the torturer too could be attractive, which only
enraged the rack-maker more. Southwell implied
condescendingly he was doubly dominant: he admitted superior attractiveness and he said he had
connections to the superior being.
Because we are fellow creatures, however, and
know how such stories work and how people
operate, we comprehend and grasp how the subtle
communications operated even four centuries ago,
but the entire scenario demonstrates how the
three-times bigger brain and its functions complicate things for the investigator. Involuntary submission may be 300 million years old. The new
neurons exploding brain size between 100 and 1
million years old are the probable source of storytelling and the other unique aspects of humanness.
They have both complicated and facilitated a
method of self examination (science) that is only
about 300 to 3000 years old. But story-telling ~ in
Dr McClung's book wonderfully engaged in helps gain an initial entry into the problem so that
science-thinking can go somewhat further on.
Topcliffe required submissive signals which
Southwell never gave. Southwell retained his passively dominant stance and communicated his
anger subtly in ways that made his expressions
hard to decipher clearly. Topcliffe could conceal
the torn muscles of his victims and thus cause less
public scandal, but Southwick could mostly conceal his defiant unsubmission, communicating just
9
I propose that the phenomena of persecutory
delusions presents a potential entry to a exploration of how we-they/in-out-group proximate
mechanisms are encoded in the brain. Understanding how EO's brain functions during her illness
compared to when she is not ill and how brain
structures and constituent chemicals are affected
in persecutory delusions more generally may exemplify an approach to proximate analysis of
sociobiological explanations -- or sociophysiology.
Sociobiology of we-they: persecutory delusions
& proximate causation10
by Russell Gardner, Jr.
Case of EO
EO was a 45 year old married real estate broker
who began to act in an evasive and bizarre manner, troubling her family who eventually brought
her to a psychiatrist. She explained that she was
under surveillance by the FBI (or some federal
agency -- which one she was uncertain) and that
digging had recently occurred in her backyard for
the purpose of burying dead bodies; she feared
she would soon be one of them.
Sociophysiology is proposed as a subset of
sociobiology, dealing with mechanisms within the
brain and cell that guide or determine various social communications and communicational sets.
One such is that of being an out-group member
with the expectancy set of harm and danger on the
one hand, and with precarious in-group fellowtravelers to look to for help and comfort.
EO was unclear about the motivations of her persecutors and why she was targeted, but she was
extremely frightened and certain of the threat. She
did not have an obvious brain syndrome (she was
oriented, could calculate and remember; she had
no evident biochemical nor imaging abnormalities
of her brain). She was finally diagnosed as having
a "delusional disorder" as she was considered to
have "simple persecutory delusions" but not the
more extensive p s y c h o p a t h o l o g y of a
schizophrenic patient.
Background
In Sociobiology, E.O. Wilson stated: "The
strongest evoker of aggressive response in
animals is the sight of a stranger, especially a territorial intruder. This xenophobic principle has
been documented in virtually every group of
animals displaying higher forms of social
organization."'1 Eibl-Eibesfeldt in his Human Ethology suggests that "Xenophobia is a universal
quality. A certain demarcation is ... a prerequisite
for group formation and maintenance."12 Small
children typically exhibit fear of strangers as a feature of normal development before their first year is
over.
She was given a medication, haloperidol, an antipsychotic drug which blocks transmission of the
neurotransmitter dopamine which exists notably in
the frontal cortex and in subcortical gray matter
downstream from the frontal cortex. After several
days, the fear abated and while the certainty of the
past experience continued as a bad memory, its
importance for present action dwindled.
Critics of biological deterministic science such
as geneticist Richard Lewontin and colleagues
have criticized sociobiology for biological
determinism.13 Nowhere is this more true than in
the realms of prejudice and genocide. They feel
that sociobiologists by assuming a biological
causation worsen the bad effects of xenophobia.
They seem to discourage investigation. Without
wanting to harm things, many of us feel that study
is nevertheless warranted: tyrannical leaders and
we-they phenomena may have been augmented
by some deterministic scientists, but certainly existed long before the science did. Psychologist
Kent Bailey has argued that bad things don't go
away by ignoring them. 14 Historian William McNeill
argues that science is less vulnerable than other
human activities to the vicissitudes of dominating
leadership; inquiry is warranted.15
This is a familiar story to any clinician who works
in a psychiatric or mental illness setting. Patients
with these convictions are garden variety, at least
several on the roster of any inpatient psychiatry
service at any one time, simple not because
pathophysiology is clear, but because familiarity
may breed contempt. Persecutory delusions stem
from many causes, ranging from brain syndromes
such as those arising from injury, degenerative diseases, intoxications, or withdrawal from drugs.
They also occur where causes are less known, as
in mania, depression, and schizophrenia. In
schizophrenia the presence of persecutory delusions and auditory hallucinations are known as
"positive symptoms" - in contrast to the "negative
symptoms" of withdrawal, apathy and poor personal hygiene.
Sociobiology often focuses upon ultimate or
evolutionary causal mechanisms and uses data
10
(There had been some recent digging near her
backyard for placement of utilities -- clinicians
speak of a "core of truth" in persecutory delusions.)
from population biology to investigate evolutionary
fitness and how natural selection might have
operated. The approach to proximate causal
mechanisms via psychopathology resembles a
view of proximate causation of movement evident
from muscles seen after removal of skin, or of
stomach acid when measured through a stomach
fistula. The biology of in-out group distinctions may
be examined through delusions. Psychiatrist Brant
Wenegrat for instance, in highlighting adaptive features of we-they/us-them patterns of social behavior indicated a relationship between such and
paranoia, notably persecutory delusions.16
One thing is very clear talking to patients who
have this kind of thinking: they have no uncertainty
about persecution. The persecutor(s) is/are
malevolent and hostile though perhaps vague in
identity. The patient senses that the enemies have
focused upon him or her. Not only are these not
friendly (to the patient) members of an in-group of
bonded people, but previously friendly people often take on new, alien characteristics. Thus, she
spoke with me and with others of the hospital treatment team about the dangers she perceived, but
there were indications that she was not completely
clear that we - or her husband -- were definitely
part of her in-group. Perhaps we were malevolent
too. Part of her psychiatric disorder was her increasing sense of isolation separated from "we" ~
she was less able to bond with potential other
people in fact willing to help rather than hurt.
Focus upon the sociophysiology of in-out group
communicational propensity states may be useful.
What are the brain and cellular mechanisms that
contribute to we-they distinctions and the basic
biology of leaders, followers, and enemies? How
can one begin? Knowledge of such brain physiology may be assisted by research in neuropsychiatry.
The generic drama
We-they in the brain
A close look at the drama presented by EO is
perhaps instructive for understanding the neuronal
machinery that may exist not only in her pathological instance, but for anyone given the circumstances of being a fearful out-group member
in a strange territory. Such a person may find it
adaptive to be wary, to expect persecution, to in
their mind flexibly assign new people to enemy
status, and to expect persecution, labeling the persecutors as closely as possible. EO was set for
defensive action, ready to run, scramble, anything
to avoid that grave.
Frontal lobes. Much data is currently produced
in psychiatry using new techniques for brain examination using CAT scans and MRIs for anatomy
and the physiological measures of PET, SPECT
and functional MRI. Many findings are subtle as yet
and new machines are improved quickly sometimes rendering today's results outdated. But
amongst the more definite early findings are enlarged ventricles in some patients with persecutory
delusions, those with schizophrenia. The anterior
horn of these cavities within the brain are within the
frontal lobes and imply lessened brain substance.
In all cases, persecutory delusions feature
vaguely known enemies ~ even if specifically
labeled they are often vague nevertheless - somehow, the FBI or CIA is after one. Something not
vague, however, is that the persecutors are alien,
dangerous and powerful. Each patient feels that he
or she is an out-group member with respect to
other people whose voices are often heard and
whose intent is evil. The patient is often desperate,
certain the other people have malicious intent. The
patient is unshakable in face-to-face discussion if
doubt or question is raised.
Identical twins discordant for schizophrenia
have demonstrated such findings when their
studies are compared; the patients have bigger
ventricles and smaller hippocampi in their temporal
lobes. They also have reduced frontal lobe function
and a f r o n t o t e m p o r a l d e f i c i t has been
hypothesized by Daniel Weinberger of the NIMH to
explain the schizophrenic illness. We here focus on
the frontal lobes and related structures and wonder
if we-they distinctions in normal people are
analyzed and prepared for there.
EO described a malevolent they - though unclear exactly of their identity, she had some impression of a federal agency, one of which she
specified. She was clear and unambiguous,
however, that there was great danger, that her life
was at stake, and that she might be buried soon.
The Russian neuropsychologist A R Luria who
examined many war-injured patients after World
War II and neurobiologist J M Fuster of UCLA, a
current leading investigator and writer, explain that
the frontal lobes are the highest centers for motor
action. They provide motor set and mediate motor
11
to be their enemies and threaten lawsuits.
memory. There are strict counterparts to more posterior parts of the brain that serve in sensory
analysis functions. Well established back-front connections are detectable in an orderly fashion. They
are differentiated: lesions on the frontal convexity
(just the other side of one's temples) cause deficient executive planning; lesions on the anteriormedial tip cause apathy. Fuster states, "frontal
memory is, above all, memory for action. An even
more characteristic frontal function is preparatory
set.... from elaborate planning to readiness for impending movement, set is a necessary precursor
of deliberate action."17
Humor is an interesting communication for
study of we-they sociophysiology. On the one
hand, it has bonding qualities as when one is in an
audience having a good time, or in making friends
with a child. But it often functions to heighten inout-group distinctions on the other hand. Mocking
laughter is painful to the recipient. A man who
stopped at a Houston streetlight was held up. He
tried to back up quickly but stepped on the wrong
pedal in his excitement; he was shot when the
would be robber, a young man with a gun, thought
the man had mocked him.
EO was not apathetic and she was poised and
set for action. She communicated that from her
position in her chair: not relaxed, ready to escape.
She was planning overtime, though her plans had
to remain multiple-option given the ambiguity of
the precise threat. Her panic, however, and
perhaps some deficient neuronal function did not
allow an adequate we-they functional analysis, but
analyzing she was, overtime. She was not in fact
the equivalent of a Bosnian Muslim, nor a black person newly moved to a white neighborhood where
blacks had never been before. According to her
family, the people in her backyard were probably
from the utilities department of her city. But the action of her neurons, I presume, may have been
similarly preparing her body for action, behaving in
a manner very similar to the way counterpart
neurons behave in a persecuted person living now
in Bosnia or in Vidor, East Texas, where integration
is being attempted, but not yet successfully.
As known from previous discussion in these
pages, a deletion in chromosome 15 seems to
cause disregulation of laughter. This points to the
possibility that a genome-behavioral analysis will
someday be possible for this communicative behavior.
Basal Ganglia. The frontal lobes are connected
downstream with the basal ganglia, especially the
caudate nucleus, the head of which is like the fat
part of a comma. Its small cells are the receiver of
messages from the frontal cortex and in an orderly
manner it is divided as is the cortex. From it messages go still further downstream to the larger cells
of the globus pallidus in a kind of funneling
process. From there the focused messages go to
the thalamus which is extremely well connected
with the frontal cortex. A reverberating circuit probably normally operates such that each link in the
chain is critical. Lesions in the structures
downstream from the cortex produce the same
behavioral difficulties as the cortical lesions themselves. The circuit is one that must usually function in all of its parts: there is no little man in the
cortex alone that guides and determines.
Evidences of frontal lobe syndrome are highly
variable and many people with small lesions show
no change whatsoever. Personal rigidity and
stereotypies may increase. Intelligence measured
formally may seem completely normal, despite
general personality change with lack of initiative
and energy. Complex intelligence is lower,
however, if attention is paid to complex sequencing tasks. For many response tendencies, the frontal lobes are inhibitory. When the frontal cortex
over the eye-balls (orbital cortex) is damaged,
patients are often disinhibited, prone to do sexual
or aggressive things and to respond to impulses.
For example, a patient with a tumor in this region
urinated in the corner of his formal dining room in
the presence of horrified company.
Dopamlne. The basal ganglia contain much
dopamine, many times as much as surrounding
tissue. The frontal cortex contains it too, especially
in the orbital area. Antipsychotic drugs reduce
dopamine's action as a neurotransmitter. As we
saw with EO, she was no longer delusional after
their use. Presumably, the dopamine circuits were
less active in her brain.
Implications
Laughter. One of the evidences of orbital dysfunction in some patients is another social dysfunction
more focused upon we-they distinctions. Witzelsucht is a coarse, demeaning, mocking humor.
Some patients with this lesion consider the doctors
Specific implications. The frontal lobes and
downstream structures containing dopamine are
probably associated with we-they sociophysiology.
Persecutory delusions illustrate the approach.
12
field were struck by the observation that early
embryonic events tend to be conserved during
evolution and that differences between related organisms generally arise as a result of modifications to relatively late developmental processes.
On the other hand, there are a number of well
documented cases of radical change during early
development in closely related organisms. Such
observations raise a number of questions. Why are
early developmental processes conserved in
some cases while in others they are open to
change? Are there any evolutionary trends in the
developmental changes that do occur and to what
extent do these trends stem from intrinsic
properties of developmental programs?
General implications. Use of psychopathology as
an index to sociophysiology more generally might
point to group, individual, organ, cellular and
molecular analyses of communicative behaviors.
D e t e r m i n i n g the normal variants of
psychopathological communicational propensity
(ready for action) states is the subject matter of
sociophysiology.
The assumption is made that fears and behaviors seen in psychotic states reflect adaptive
states from millenia past as well as in our present.
Learning more of this should include cellularmolecular mechanisms on one hand and adaptive
purposes of the whole organism on the other. Investigation of brain areas should include deficitinfluenced behaviors as well as medications
remedying the communicational state.
A striking example of evolutionary conservatism
is provided by the early development of insect
central nervous system (CNS). A set of early differentiating neurons can be recognized in the CNS
of the grasshopper embryo, which is also present,
virtually unchanged,
in the CNS of the
evolutionary distant fruitfly and moth embryos.
These neurons can be confidently considered
homologous, as at least 9 neurons, which occupy
corresponding positions in the different insects,
have identical axon outgrowth (although some
minor differences exist in the latter respect). It
therefore appears highly likely that there is a conserved basic plan within the insects for the
development of CNS axon pathways....
This paper suggests:
1. when pathological behavior shares characteristics with normal behavior, these links may point to
mechanisms in common;
2. moreover, the form of the symptom may indicate important areas of normal behavior accessible to study so that enhanced examination of
other examples can be made, including its
neurobiology;
3. brain areas involved may be inferred by studies
of the related pathologies, studies of deficits, and
across-species comparisons;
[T]his set of central neurons, which is conserved in insects, is also present in the embryo of
the freshwater crayfish Procambarus.... '[A]ll
arthropod nervous systems seem to be constructed using the same embryonic plan'. It seems
very unlikely that a set of 9 neurons in corresponding positions in the insect and crayfish nervous
system could have convergently acquired identical morphologies. The claim that these insect and
crustacean neurons are homologous therefore
appears to be well-founded. More recently this
finding was advanced, together with a reported
strong similarity between insect and crayfish
embryos in the pattern of neural expression of the
segmentation gene engrailed, as evidence that
these two groups 'share a relatively recent common ancestor', showing that this finding has considerable phylogenetic, as well as developmental
significance....
4. study of psychotropic drugs that ameliorate
pathological symptoms allows hypothetical inferences about the biochemical and brain
mechanisms of the normal counterparts of the
pathologies;
5. study of sociophysiology as a basic science for
the medical study of psychopathology might
benefit by using the very phenomena of
psychopathology rather than keeping the two
areas isolated from one another.
I
Whitington PM, Leach D, Sandeman R: Evolutionary change in neural development within the
arthropods: axonogenesis in the embryos of two
crustaceans. Development 1993; 118:449-461
[T]he embryo of the centipede ethmostigmus
rubripes, a representative of the myriapods, the
arthropod group widely held to be most closely related to the insects, shows little resemblance to
insects in its mode of formation of CNS axon
Introduction: The relationship between development and evolution has attracted the attention of
biologists for over a century. Early workers in the
13
tracts. In this arthropod, the pioneering axons in
the CNS arise from neurons located in the brain,
with neurons located in the segmental ganglia
beginning
axonogenesis
only
later
in
embryogenesis. Furthermore, the pattern of axon
growth from segmental neurons in the centipede
has little in common with that reported in insects.
due to variable amounts of paramagnetic
deoxyhemoglobin in the cerebral blood pool.
Recently, the effect has been exploited to study
brain function in normal subjects with use of both
EPI and FLASH sequences and at field strengths
ranging from 1.5 to 4.0-T. The observed signal increases about 6 s after the onset of a specific task
reflects a transient hyperoxemia that may be understood as an overcompensation of only a mild
enhancement of oxygen consumption by a much
larger increase in regional blood volume as suggested by positron emission tomography. Preliminary MRI studies of brain activation on the basis of
oxygenation difference maps include the visual
system, the motorsensory system, and areas associated with language processing.
Given these recent findings in the myriapods ...
[and the idea of an arthopod embryonic plan], we
considered it necessary to readdress the question
of conservatism between the insects and the crustacea in nervous system development.
Summary: It has been previously suggested that
there is a conservative program for neural development amongst the arthropods, on the basis that a
stereotyped set of cells involved in establishing
the axon tracts in the CNS of insect embryos is
also present in crayfish embryos. We have examined the spatiotemporal pattern of axon growth
from a set of early differentiating central neurons
in the embryo of two crustaceans, the woodlouse
Porcellio scaber and the freshwater crayfish
Cherax destructor, and we have drawn comparisons with insect neurons whose somata lie in
corresponding positions within the CNS. While
many of the woodlouse and crayfish neurons
show a similar pattern of axon growth to their insect counterparts, the axon trajectories taken by
others differ from those seen in insects. We conclude that this aspect of early neural development
has not been rigidly conserved during the evolution of the crustaceans and insects. However, the
extent of similarity between the insects and crustaceans is consistent with the idea that these
groups of arthropods share a common evolutionary 'Bauplan' for the construction of their nervous
systems. While the pattern of early axon growth in
the woodlouse and crayfish embryos is sufficiently
similar that many neurons could be confidently
recognized as homologues, several differences
were noted in both the relative order of axon outgrowth and axon morphologies of individual
neurons.
Since the physical effect in functional MRI of
brain oxygenation is due to a transient shift in magnetic susceptibility normally expected to increase
with voxel size and echo time, MRI activation
studies have hitherto been performed at rather
coarse spatial resolution and with the use of long
gradient echo times.... This work demonstrates
that the resulting voxel sizes of 40 to 80 milliliters
can be further reduced by more than one order of
magnitude without compromising the "activation
contrast" during task performance.
Abstract: Functional activation maps of the human
visual cortex were obtained at a spatial resolution
almost two orders of magnitude better than achievable by positron emission tomography and within
measuring time of a few seconds. Transient alterations in the concentration of paramagnetic
deoxyhemoglobin were conveniently detected at
2.0-T with use of RF-spoiled FLASH MRI sequences employing gradient echo times of 6 to 60
ms and voxel sizes of 2.5 to 391.
Quotes from Discussion section called 'The effect
of voxel size: In contrast to what might be expected for global magnetic inhomogeneities, the
net signal change between states of high and low
concentrations of deoxyhemoglobin increased
rather than decreased by reducing the slice thickness. ... Here, a reduction of the slice thickness
from 8 to 4 mm consistently doubled the intensity
difference between images in the dark and activated state regardless of the matrix size.
Frahm J, Merboldt K-D, Hanicke W: Functional MRI
of human brain activation at high spatial resolution.
Magnetic Resonance in Medicine 1993;26:139-144
Quotes from Discussion section called 'The correlation of anatomy and function": For the first time the
MRI approach allows a noninvasive correlation of
brain anatomy and function at the same level of
high spatial resolution. Moreover, studies with a
temporal resolution of seconds may be carried out
Quotes from the Introduction: The sensitivity of a
gradient echo MRI signal to dephasing of spin in
local magnetic field gradients provides a means to
detect differences in tissue oxygenation that are
14
of apes to establish the phylogenetic level at
which this transformation occurs. The staining patterns of GAL-ir within the basal forebrain of both
lesser (gibbons) and great (chimpanzee and
gorilla) apes were compared to that previously
observed within monkeys and humans. All apes
displayed a pattern of basal forebrain of GAL-ir indistinguishable from humans. GAL-ir was not expressed within ape basal forebrain magnocellular
neurons as seen in monkeys. Rather like humans,
a dense collection of GAL-ir fibers was seen in
close apposition to magnocellular perikarya. In
addition, a few GAL-ir parvocellular neurons were
scattered within the ape basal forebrain. These
data indicate that the evolutionary change in the
expression of GAL-ir within the primate basal
forebrain occurs at the branch point of monkeys
and apes.
in individual subjects and within a single examination of a few minutes of total investigational time.
Although yet limited in the number of subjects, the
available data reveal a remarkable intrasubject
reproducibility of the activation maps. Considerable interindividual differences in the anatomy
of the calcarine [visual] cortex are closely followed
by the functional activation pattern. Not surprisingly, the major effects are confined to the outer
layers of the cortical gray matter along the various
sulci. The structural variability in the visual system
clearly underlines the necessity to perform activation studies on individual subjects without any attempt to average results with the help of geometrically "standardized" brain as often employed with
positron emission tomography data.
Quotes from the Introduction: In general, the distribution of neuroactive substances is organized
along a general mammalian plan. However, GAL,
like a few other notable exceptions clearly
deviates from this rule....
Benzing WC, Kordower JH, Mufson EJ: Galanin
immunoreactivity within the primate basal
forebrain: evolutionary change between monkeys
and apes. J Comp Neurol 1993;336:31-39.
Galanin (GAL) is a 29-amino acid peptide... GAL
protein and mRNA have been shown to be widely
distributed throughout the mammalian central nervous system and in particular GAL is intimately associated with basal forebrain
cholinergic
neurons.... [D]istribution of GAL protein varies
within the basal forebrain across a variety of mammalian species.
Quotes from the Discussion: [L]ike humans, apes
displayed a major galaninergic fiber pathway that
coursed through the substantia innominata en
route to the hypothalamus, bed nucleus of the stria
terminalis, and the vertical limb of the diagonal
band.... Although the pattern of GAL-ir within the
ape basal forebrain was strikingly discordant with
the monkey, the hypothalamus and bed nucleus of
the stria terminalis displayed similar patterns of
cell body and fiber staining between the two
primates,
indicating the specificity of this
finding....
Basal forebrain cholinergic structures notably
include the nucleus basalis of Meynert and the
diagonal band of Broca.
In rats: GAL colocalizes within cholinergic
neurons of medial septal/vertical limb of diagonal
band complex but not in the nucleus basalis.
The evolutionary pressures underlying the
phylogenetic transformation of GAL-ir within the
basal forebrain of the hominoid superfamily
remain a mystery at this juncture....
In new and old world monkeys GAL colocalizes
in virtually all large cholinergic neurons, whereas in
humans, it does not exist within any of the large
cholinergic neurons (although a small population
of small cells possess GAL).
The importance of GAL-ir fiber innervation is hypertrophied within the basal forebrain in patients
with Alzheimer's disease. In fact, it has been suggested that the hyperinnervation of cholinergic
basal forebrain neurons by GAL-ir fibers may accentuate the cholinergic hypofunction described
in Alzheimer's disease, a putatively uniquely
human disorder.... it is unclear how differences in
chemical anatomy ...of individual brain regions in
higher primates relate to the nuances of human
brain evolution and the coevolution of human behavior.
Abstract: Galanin immunoreactivity (GAL-ir) is differentially expressed within the basal forebrain of
monkeys and humans. Most monkey magnocellular basal forebrain neurons colocalize GAL-ir. In
contrast, virtually no human magnocellular basal
forebrain neurons express GAL-ir. Rather, an extrinsic galaninergic fiber plexus innervates these
neurons in humans. The present study examined
the expression of GAL-ir within the basal forebrain
15
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2. c/o R Gardner, 4.450 Graves Building (D28), University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, TX 77555-0428. FAX: 409-772-6771.
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3. Tiger L, Fox R: The Imperial Animal. NY: Henry Holt, 1971, 1989.
4. ibid, p 5
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Press, 1991.
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1-800-841-BOOK 9 am to 5 pm Pacific Standard time
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